


From the Bottom of a Plastic Pool

by DoubleMastectomy



Series: Zone Five Quarantine Fair [1]
Category: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys: California (Comics)
Genre: Ableism, Abuse, Backstory, Gen, Misgendering, Neurodiversity, Pre-Canon, Transgender, Transgender Vinyl, Transgender Volume, Transphobia, those tags make it seem more angsty than it is, um nothing too heavy though
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-04
Updated: 2020-05-04
Packaged: 2021-03-02 22:07:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,235
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24004096
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DoubleMastectomy/pseuds/DoubleMastectomy
Summary: Before the Ultra V's, and before he was a killjoy to begin with, Vinyl grew up among neutrals. Living under a strict lifestyle that only pretended to be better than Better Living's, he longed for escape.
Relationships: Vinyl & Volume (Fabulous Killjoys)
Series: Zone Five Quarantine Fair [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1733770
Comments: 5
Kudos: 21





	From the Bottom of a Plastic Pool

**Author's Note:**

> This is for prompt 1 of the Zone Five Quarantine Fair prompt week by @killjoynest on tumblr. The first prompts were "beginning | escape" and this could pretty much go along with either, thanks for reading!

In a neutral town, in southeast Zone One, white vinyl siding dressed the square two story houses in mock-suburbanity alongside the white picket fences that illustrated the convincing normality of the flat desert plain. Five residences sat in an irregular circle over the dinner plate of white silt, two families to each. 

Inside the central most house, in the ground floor flat, a teen boy stood in front of his bedroom vanity mirror trimming the edges of his ragged pixie cut. Above the squat chiffonier a white sheet was collected up in twine like a curtain and the counter itself was clear of all objects save for a cotton tool bag and a beaded jewelry box. The boy leaned scarcely to the right to avoid a beam of afternoon sun that reflected towards him at eye level. And he pulled at his bangs again, making progress on the split ends. 

Briefly he made eye contact with himself, but only by mistake. His small frame in a black t-shirt and hand-me-down jeans stood out awkward and wrong even while alone. But despite his size, in the mirror the walls of his room still framed him closely. It’d been an office space at one point before he’d needed his own accommodations so it was only just large enough for him to stretch out in a bed and not much more. Relaxing his stance, straightening out, he allowed the sun to settle back over his tired eyes lighting them up silver, his pupils catching his gaze like a pit trap. He tore his glare away, frowning and returning his focus to his work. He made another hasty cut at a sloppy angle. 

A gnat flitted through the sweaty air and a stale hot breeze twisted in, blowing his sheer drapes out like ghosts in the corner of his vision, drawing his attention to the fact that he’d left the window open. Suddenly he was too aware of the white noise outside, the silent wind and occasional distant call of a crow proclaiming its existence: that it’s alive. 

Placing the delicate metal scissors down, the boy took a moment to run one of his hands over the wood grain of the dresser and the other through his feathered hair, soft and dusty like charcoal. He took a moment to breathe. From down the hall, his mother called for him indistinctly and though he tried to block out the grating sound he couldn’t pretend not to hear, not even to himself. Her voice wasn’t angry but coated in sharp sugar; frank enough to be harsh. He risked a glance at his reflection one last time before tugging free the sheet hung above, letting it fall down over the glass obscuring his image once more. Then hurrying as to not make his mother need to speak again, he took a minute to shut the bottom panel of his window, resting the heels of his palms against the rusted metal and pushing it down with his weight until he heard the click and the newly present silence. Grabbing a dark oversized hoodie off his bed frame, he headed out into the hall, latching his door and drawing the pullover onto himself, tugging at the sleeves until it fit comfortably. 

“About time you joined me, hey why do you look like that? I thought you were done with the short hair,” his mother greeted him over rectangular reading glasses as he paced into the joint kitchen and dining room space, “You’d look prettier if you’d just let it grow out a little more.” She reached up and pet his head as he silently pulled out a chair and sat down next to her at the table, and he let her, reveling in the affectionate touch. 

She returned to shuffling through the folded papers in front of her, likely some accounting work for BLi to keep the family, and the economy, above board. It wasn’t her favorite job in the world, she was always quick to point out that she wasn’t _really_ a sympathizer and the way BLi treated those poor people in the city using these numbers as motivation was rather unfortunate, but still she took pride in her work being productive as it was. Folding a binder clip over a sizable packet, she smiled at the sums in front of her as they added up in her head. She moved on, “Aren’t you a little hot in that thing anyway?” 

The boy shook his head no and stuffed his hands into the hoodie’s front pocket, feeling the soft cotton around his fingers. With his eyes he traced the table’s wood panels, keeping them busy to privately excuse his refusal to look his mother in the face. They sat like that for a while, in silence save for the refrigerator's hum a few feet away, until his mother drew in a breath as if to speak. 

She was interrupted, however, by the sound of the front door slamming open around the corner and the boy’s older sister’s quick footsteps echoing across the hardwood floor. 

“Kayla! Shut that door when you come in!” 

“Sorry mother!” she sweetly cooed skidded to a halt in the room’s entryway before turning heel and running off again. 

“And stop running!” 

The boy cracked a smile, looking up as Kayla sped-walked back in, tying her bleached rusty hair into a high ponytail and rushing towards the kitchen cabinets, grabbing one of the thin white BLi ration packets. She clicked on the gas and held out a match to light the stove with a gentle burst of orange flame. 

“And what have you been up to all day?” Their mother’s artificial interest barely hid the bait. 

“Went for a jog.” 

“Could’ve used your help around the house you know, instead of you just wasting your time all morning goofing off.” 

Kayla rolled her eyes and changed the topic: “Did’ja hear about the tumbleweed that blew in?” She placed a pot of water under the running tap and turned to face them, grinning at her mother’s annoyance. 

“Another one?” she scoffed, “What does it want, do you know?” 

Shrugging, Kayla turned off the tap and moved the pot onto the lit burner, “How should I know? He’s dressed like a freak though,” she smiled at the boy, “you’d fucking love it.” 

“Watch your damn mouth, and no you-” the boy’s mother spoke to him now too, offended, “No you wouldn’t ‘love it’, don’t let her encourage you.” 

He covered his mouth to hide a snicker but nodded obediently. 

“And I want neither of you talking to that killjoy -I’m assuming it’s a killjoy of course?” 

“‘Course.” Kayla laughed. She ripped open the ration packed, dumped the dried meat into the boiling water, and adjusted the heat. 

“Neither of you will be speaking to that killjoy. We don’t need to attract any more attention to ourselves. Just let it pass through disaster free and we’ll be fine” 

“Oh, ‘we don’t need to attract any attention-’ yeah, whatever, you said the same thing when I wanted to wear mascara.” 

“You're way too young to be wearing mascara, it’s garish.” 

“ _You’re_ garish.” 

“Young lady!” 

“I wasn’t even gonna talk to him anyway, why would I! You’re being fucking accusatory!” She spoke loudly, but was careful not to raise her voice into shouts, toeing the tightrope of how far she could push it. She moved the pot to the countertop and picked up a ceramic bowl. 

“I’m being accusatory?” Her mother raised her eyebrows taken aback, “You’re the one who’s starting shit, I’m just asking you to be a good influence on your sister!” 

The boy startled back to his senses, bouncing his leg under the table trying badly just to mentally escape the aggression that was sandwiching him from either side. He fidgeted his hands in his pocket, cracking his knuckles one by one and counting as he did. 

“ _My sister_?” Kayla groaned exaggeratedly, “Fuck, shut up, you don’t even know anything.” 

Angrily she spooned the cooked meat into the bowl and then, leaving the used equipment out, she walked quickly over to her brother and tugged gently on his hood, flashing their mother the stink eye as she spoke to him, “C’mon let’s go. You need some sun”

  
\----  
  


Once outside, Kayla kicked an empty glass bottle as they walked along. “Fuck I hate her so much! I literally hate her so much, why won’t she just chill out for once!” With her fingers she picked out a chunk of meat from the bowl in her hands. As she chewed on it, the boy got the sense that this was the only thing shutting her up for now. He looked around at the houses surrounding them as their own fell back behind them. The blank windows watched them like empty eyes and everything was quiet. Their neighbors would all be inside at this hour of day, going about their business, and their father would be out and about somewhere, somewhere else. But doing what exactly the kids never knew. When asked about his daily work he’d only ever offer vague answers about BLi’s security and “it’s a paycheck” and most frequently: just a hasty change of subject. Sometimes a bruise or a limp would make the boy wonder, but it wasn’t his place to ask, nor did he really want to know. The more he could envision a separation between his family and Battery City, the better. On some of the clearest of summer days, the city would be visible on the horizon, grey and faded like a fog, intriguing but ultimately ghastly. But not on this day, the atmosphere was too thick and all he could see beyond his home was the white desert air. Kayla offered him the last piece of jerky. 

When he took it she threw the bowl, which crashed into the center of the dirt road. It shattered into three shards which tumbled a ways away following the bitter momentum. The jerky tasted like salt on the boy’s tongue. From behind and to the side, he watched Kayla who seemed to have already forgotten him to her own thoughts. She pumped her fists against the air, her face scrunched up, as if she were fighting an invisible enemy. She only wore a loose spaghetti strap tank, baring her sunburned shoulders coated in a layer of acne scars and freckles, brazen and boy-ish. The boy couldn’t help but wonder why their parents never bothered her about the way she presented herself. It was only he who was critiqued on his clothes or his hair or his posture, too strange and off-putting even when his aesthetic of choice was much more subdued than any of the bright or proud clothes that Kayla would scrounge together. He wasn’t being fair to her, he knew that, but he’d seen her punch out the drywall to the most minimal of audience reactions while just this morning he had to look for his own scissors hidden away in his parents' medicine cabinet. The boy threw up his hood and sunk further into the hoodie. 

The two of them left faint footprints in the dust as they walked. It wasn’t long before they reached the edge of the small development, just beyond the final house. There was an empty above-ground community pool out there, plastic and loudly blue, bluer than the pale sterile sky. Against the house that it stood next to was a rotted billboard with a leisurely tropical scene painted on it. Though it was half chipped away and had unsightly brown streaks running down it from acid rain, a few hand drawn palm trees were still discernible in the thick sun-bleached brushstrokes. And on the opposite side of the pool running along this border of the development was a tall white picket fence, of course, a glaring seam stitched between civility and the wild untamed zones, dangerous as they were. The peaks of the wooden planks were carved into hostile points much sharper than should've been necessary to deter what roamed at night. Kayla rested her hand on the boy’s shoulder and he stared at the fence’s gate, locked tight. 

“Look. See?” She bent over by his ear and pointed straight ahead. 

A few yards out was a lone joshua tree, young and bent. It didn’t look like it would last much longer, no plant life ever did. The soil there was cursed and infertile, too dry and contaminated from whatever the war had done to it, surely infected with strange ungodly chemicals and poison that seeped deep into the ground. With sarcasm these neutrals would have often compare the land to the bleak surface of the moon, an apt enough description. 

But out there stood the young tree, and beneath it: a killjoy. He was surely no older than the boy’s age, fifteen or sixteen or so, and much younger than Kayla who was nearing twenty. His hair was long on top with the sides shaved down, and it had been bleached and dyed a vain purple. A heavy leather jacket was tied around his narrow waist, a few metal spikes jutting out at its shoulders and its back covered in dirty patches. He was busy propping a tent up against the tree, balancing PVC pipes against it and tying a canvas tarp over them. Leaning against his duffle bag was a portable radio, turned on low and indistinct. 

“Come on,” Kayla scolded softly, tugging the boy towards the empty pool, and then she climbed over the thin wall, dropping into it with a huff. The boy followed with a bit more effort as the wall measured up to his shoulders, he mounted the edge with one leg balanced over each side and for a second he looked back at the killjoy in curiosity, before clambering the rest of the way over. 

In the pool, the two sat cross legged facing each other like they did whenever they would come out here. Blue light leaked in through the translucent walls and bounced around the inside, glazing over their skin in cool dreary color. The boy rubbed his eyelids, tired. 

“I know you hate her too.” 

He looked at her, nervously kneading at his palm in his lap, feeling the sweat under his thumb as he ran it up towards the palms of his knuckles, splaying his fingers and then intertwining them, holding his own hand. Kayla’s uncomfortable gaze locked with his. 

“You _have_ to hate her - and dad, fuck. They think you’re a fuck up you know,” She lowered her voice as if she were telling a secret, “They think the reason you’re a fuck up is because we live out here without the meds that would just _fix_ you.” He knew that already of course. “You’re just so fucking weird and you look like you’re gonna overheat and keel over any minute you know, it’s disgusting.” She paused and looked him up and down, “And you’re just… whatever, it doesn’t matter, man.” 

Painful silence followed, like holding your breath underwater. And though the boy tried to breathe out, he couldn’t. His voice hooked against the thorns in his throat. He leaned forward suddenly, shifting his weight to his knees and tucking his legs under himself, and he grabbed Kayla’s hands from her lap, looking up at her with wide eyes pleading for something, anything, more than what she was giving him; for any comfort, any validation, any act of kindness to soften the blows. Or at the very least to soften the hardest blow, the ever ebbing knowledge that this pool was not their life. They could hide here for now but there was a world beyond it and they would surface again. They would leave the calm blue oasis it offered and return to the bleached, the dry, the blinding desert, the heat and conformity, the houses all the same and the people all the same and the mornings all the same. And in that moment the boy was struck up in a panic like a trapped beast. He couldn’t wake up one more morning like this. He wasn’t born to be an actor. And he wasn’t born to be a devotee to the family he’d never have chosen if given the choice. He would’ve chosen his own gods if he could. The sun spun above. 

Kayla bit her lip. “I don’t want to move back to the city because of you.” She dropped his hands. 

“Kay...” he croaked out, hand shooting up to his mouth instinctually from the mortifying shame of speaking his mind. 

“Don’t call me that - I just. I just wish you could be normal. Why can’t you just... be. You make everything a _thing_ , and you're so sensitive when people don’t understand you but how can they? At the very least why can’t you just learn to stand up for yourself for once, dumbass, be your own man if that’s whatcha really want but fuck I’m trying, you know I’m trying to understand you, but mom and dad are tired." 

Barely audible he managed in a whisper: “You’re tired too.” 

“Of you? No - I -” 

“Of them.” 

Her body stiffened as she sunk into herself, her eyes dark and heavy, “No. I…” She ripped out her hair tie, letting the updo fall back over herself like a blanket, “I’m going to make them respect me. Whatever it takes. I’ll do remote work for Better Living, I think, that’ll get mother off my back. And then I’ll… I don’t know.. I’ll - I’ll do something. But what are _you_ gonna do? Do you even have a plan? What could you possibly do for yourself. You’re not doing yourself any favors and if BLi saw you they’d hate you too.” She laughed breathy and troubled, “We’re fucked, we’re so fucked.” 

They were silent again. 

The boy stood up, leaning against the pool wall with his arms crossed he looked over it at the killjoy. He’d finished setting up his shelter and now lounged there in the sparse shade. Where did he come from? And where would he be heading after this? The boy had heard plenty about the killjoys, granted mostly through the BLi reports, but the concept still intrigued him. They lived in the desert like he did but they embraced life, painting themselves in color as rebellion, self expression as a rebellion. Did this killjoy have any friends? Did he have a family? Did they understand him? His young face so round and soft couldn’t have known much hardship, but surely he must’ve at least seen more than the boy had in his short life contained in this empty home. 

“Stop.” Kayla yanked on the pocket of his hood, making him lose his balance, but as he fell she grabbed him by his shoulders and held him steadfast too close to her face. “That killjoy’ll be dead in a month. He’s as good as dead and for what? To sleep outside in a dirty fucking tent? Don’t even think about that shit. You’re not running away from this family, you pussy. You’re gonna suck it up and grin and bear it like we all gotta, cause this is the real world and that’s what I need you to do for me right now, understand?” He grabbed her wrists to pull her off of him with little success. “I’m the only one out here who has this kind of faith in you but fuck I know you’re too smart to give up like that. You’re smart, right?” She waited for an answer but he just looked at her with big eyes frozen in place. “Answer me dumbass,” She lightly smacked his ear, “You’re smart, right?” 

He nodded. 

“Good.”

  
\----  
  


That night, the boy’s parents had the television set to Battery City’s news channel. The connection was spotty outside the city’s perimeter, but in between the jarring static breaks they could make out the news cycle, the usual propaganda spiel. 

The boy watched from the hallway half hidden behind the plastic door frame. Kayla skipped into the room from the side and paused a moment to think. Cheekily she whispered something to their father before joining their mother on the family sofa, crossing her legs. 

Their father frowned, “Leave your sister alone, Kayla. That wasn’t necessary.” 

She giggled a bit, “What? It’s true!” 

“You’re no better, when's the last time you did your chores on time? Be grateful we put up with your bullshit.” 

She looked away, red faced, but under her breath she mumbled, “I try my best and it’s not like you’d fucking kick me out anyway.” 

“What was that?” he raised his voice, “You wanna test that?” 

Kayla shook her head. 

“Look at me when I’m speaking to you!” 

“Quiet down both of you, I’m trying to watch the report here!” their mother chided, shoving Kayla’s leg and turning up the television’s volume. 

Finding distraction again, the boy ran his hand down the door frame until it met up with the vinyl baseboard. And then sitting now, he traced that. He let the shouting in the other room fade away into the background, as far as he was concerned it was all part of the television program, the happy droning on about scarecrows and stocks. He couldn’t be bothered with it, it was all the same and it wasn’t real, not to him, not then. 

The boy was done with this. He stood up and without looking back into the living space, he headed down the hallway and into his room, locking the door behind himself hoping it’d muffle out the rest of the argument. And though he wasn’t tired he slipped into his old stiff bed and pulled the dusty comforter over himself and he lay there still and silent until his body fell asleep.

  
\----  
  


The next morning before the sun cracked dawn, the boy woke up. He was surely the only one awake at that hour, but he didn’t give himself time to linger. He got up, put on his hoodie and boots, and he walked slowly and cautiously out, not bothering to lock his door. 

He was careful passing his family’s closed doors, sneaking along the edge of the hallway where the floor wouldn’t creak as much. But as he reached the front door he was met with Kayla, standing there in her sleeping clothes and almost startled to see him. 

“You can’t run away. You’re being stupid, you can’t run away from this.” 

He fidgeted with his hands, mentally gauging how serious she was. 

“You can’t leave me.” 

He took a step forward, shaking his head as nicely as he could. 

“You’re being irrational.” She refused to meet his gaze. 

He began to step around her, expecting a tug or pull or something harsher, but she only stood there as helpless as he was. He undid the deadlock and the latch on the door and he cracked it open drawing out it’s heavy creak, politely waiting for any final goodbyes from his sister. But she didn’t say anything, and he walked out. 

Outside, he ran sure his parents would see him from their window any minute now, or another family who’d snitch, or anything like that, it couldn’t be this easy. But, panting, he made it well beyond eyeshot and earshot and to the edge of the neighborhood where he gripped at the gated fence with shivering arms, glancing behind himself too surprised and relieved to find the neighborhood as empty and desolate as it always was. 

The air was blue, dark, and pleasantly cool as the boy examined the gate’s lock. It’d require a key, a key he had no copies of. Shaking his head, he resigned himself to other means of getting past it and placed a foot over the horizontal rail that held the fence posts together. He began to scale it. As he ascended, the unsanded wood scraped at him and his clothes, scratching his forearm in a painful shock as he turned over the top and started down the other side, his stomach churning in excitement, reality setting in. Once his feet touched the ground: he was over it, beyond the perimeter of the only home he knew. And he was in the desert. 

Briskly he made his way over to the killjoy’s tent but as he neared he realized he hadn’t thought this through. He knew nothing about this boy, and he knew nothing about what he wouldd say to him (if he could say anything at all). And what was a killjoy’s life like anyway? One foot in front of the other, he reached the camp too quickly and swayed in place, shifting his weight back and forth between his legs, debating what to do, waiting for himself to build enough confidence to, maybe, clear his throat loudly enough to get the killjoy's attention, assuming the killjoy was even awake enough to hear it. 

He couldn’t though, he was frozen. The boy needed to be his own man like Kayla had said, but he was stuck. The flat neighborhood sat there waiting for his return, fixed in place and convincingly merciful. It would always be there for him. But anything else, even a shitty killjoy life, would be worth it. He refused to look back. 

The stiff leaves, gathered like bunches of needles, rattled in the tree above, and he sat down on the far side of the tent where the neutrals wouldn’t be able to spot him if they looked. If there were a more solid door on the tent he’d have knocked, but the canvas structure didn’t seem sturdy enough for that idea. So patiently he waited and picked at the dry weeds that endured under the watchful tree’s shadow. He braided the short stems and glanced at the sunrise every now and again, slightly pink and warm and worrying. His parents would be awake soon. 

“Hello?” 

The boy jumped in place but smiled nervously. The killjoy was awake now and in front of him, groggy by not hostile. Up close, he was struck by how real the killjoy looked: his skin, his hair, his eyes a deep grey like his own. 

“You live in this settlement?” 

The boy looked down and nodded, pulling his legs under himself. 

“That must suck,” the killjoy sat next to him, leaning against the tree. His voice was too kind, like that of an old friend even though they’d just met, and he enunciated every word he spoke as if he were glad just to be speaking them, “Most neutral villages at least offer trades when I show up, but now I’ve got all these carbons for nothing,” he laughed a little, his smile bright, “What’s it like living in there, is it peaceful at least?” 

The boy shook his head. 

“Figured. I hate neutrals,” He pulled in the corners of his mouth sadly. “The name’s Volume, by the way,” he reached out for a handshake. 

The boy took his hand, calloused but welcoming, and held it. 

“What’s your name? If you don’t mind me asking.” 

He shook his head again, and quietly spoke breathy and light, “I don’t have - uh I don’t like my name.” 

“Oh...” Volume exhaled under his breath, “Oh shit you’re trans aren’t you? Sorry, it’s just your voice, it just - ” 

The boy furrowed his brows at him, not understanding. 

“Shit, of course neutrals wouldn’t get it but you’re a boy right? And, like, if I had to guess, not everyone sees you as one, right? but that okay, that’s okay! I’m trans too,” he tapped at his own chest excitedly holding back a grin, “I am too. I get it, I understand.” 

The boy relaxed a bit and leaned into Volume, blinking, thinking about that. That this killjoy was like him, he wasn’t alone. The sun was well above the horizon by then and he knew his time was limited, but at least for the time being he was understood. He held Volume’s hand. 

“Killjoys are so chill with that kind of shit,” he continued, “fuck all neutrals. In the zones - in the _real_ zones - you can dress how you want, call yourself how you want. Everyone has the freedom to choose their own name, identity, and, like, do you guys even have _music_ out here?” 

He pondered that sudden tangent, thinking it over unsure, “We have Better Living headphones…” 

Volume shook his head, “That’s not real music. Hold on.” He reached to the side, leaning over to dig around in his bag, and pulled out the radio. The print that had at one point labeled the buttons and dials had long since worn off, and the green body of it was dented and punctured in a few places. He flipped the top switch and it instantly began releasing a gentle buzz like a pleased warm hum. 

With a delicate touch Volume spun the front dial around in a smooth circle and the station shifted accordingly, alternating between random choppy noise and static until it settled on something gentle and mellow. He planted the radio down between them, “wait ‘til the guitars kick in, just wait for that.” 

But the boy didn’t need to wait, the singer's gentle voice was already tantalizing enough over the steady piano backing, it was unlike anything he’d heard before from the city’s mass-produced arts that functioned more as brainwashing than anything. And then the guitars started. Sudden and energetic, he turned to Volume, grabbing his hand again and squeezing it not wanting to let go. 

“One of my buddies has this track on vinyl, like, they can play it whenever the fuck they want. Bet your headphones can’t do that, they’re hooked up to the internet unless I’m mistaken?” Naturally, he wasn’t mistaken. Volume smiled slyly, “There’s so much out here you’ve been missing out on.” 

The music over the radio slowed again, the singer drawing out the lyrics. And in the sky, the sun rose higher yet, lighting up the barren landscape in a pearly haze. A few clouds hovered around the star, glowing. 

“You should meet some other joys some time,” Volume tested the waters, pulling his hand away from the boy’s to stand up and brush his vibrant hair back out of his face. “This place blows.” 

Then as casually as he could, Volume began to dismantle the tent, packing up his things. He’d been keen on the boy’s anxiety to get out of here and was just waiting for him to say the word. Just one word and he’d save him. 

The boy opened his mouth wanting to ask about the desert. He had too much to ask, but there was so much it was overwhelming. Thoughts passed over him; did the zones get lonely? Where did they get their food, their supplies? Would it be as dangerous as he’d been told? But he couldn't form the words, instead he just watched Volume in the sunlight, blissful and carefree. 

“You said you choose your names.” It was more a statement than anything, a leap of faith. 

Volume grinned, “Yeah, killjoys choose their names. It’s like a bit of a tradition.” 

“Vinyl.” 

“Oh!” Volume placed a hand on his shoulder, more pleased than he could put into words. He asked, “That’s your name?” his approval obvious in his affectionate tone. 

Giddy from joy, Vinyl nodded.


End file.
